The Issue with Palm Leaf Blunts

We all love a blunt. It’s the slower burn and richer flavor that comes with using a thicker wrap instead of traditional rolling papers.

But the nicotine and health concerns a traditional tobacco blunt wrap can bring to the party is not everyone’s cup of tea and can ruin a perfectly good session.

Which is why the modern blunt smoker often reaches for non-tobacco blunt wrap and other blunt wrap alternatives. We’re obviously partial to high-quality hemp wraps and hybrid hemp wraps for our blunts cones and pre-rolled blunt tubes, since they come from the same plant as your flower and always compliment the flavor without stepping on it.

But there are plenty of options out there if hemp wraps aren’t your bag.

However, one option we usually recommend against is palm leaf wraps and palm leaf blunt tubes. It’s not that the flavor or burn is bad or anything, it’s that, as you know, DaySavers is all about safety testing our products to the highest standards in the industry for pesticides, heavy metals and microbials.

And when it comes to palm leaf wraps, that can be a problem. So here are some reasons to avoid palm leaf wraps and blunt tubes.

What Are Palm Leaf Wraps and Blunt Tubes?

The main reason to avoid palm leaf blunt wraps and blunt tubes is that though they can provide great, tasty and nicotine-free smoke, palm leaves are a natural product, made literally of leaves.

The majority of palm leaf wraps today aren’t actually palm leaves, but are really either from the Cordia or Tendu tree.

The Cordia leaf has a dark, green color and grows across southeast Asia and the South Pacific Islands. They get their distinctive hue from high amounts of chlorophyll that not only give the leaves its color, but also results in an earthy taste being added to the smoking experience. Cordia palm wraps and blunts are often greener, have a smoother appearance and, because of the additional chlorophyll, tend to be more brittle and are prone to cracking.

Tendu leaves, on the other hand come from a tree found widely across central India. It is commonly used for thin, hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes. The tendu leaf is also more flexible and does not crack as easily when dry, making it an excellent leaf to use for rolling. It is usually grayer in color, has a slightly fuzzy texture and has a milder taste because of the cure used to remove chlorophyll.

Basically, the main difference between the tendu leaf and the cordia leaf is the way that they are cured and prepared. The tendu leaf is toasted, removing chlorophyll and other plant components while the cordia leaf is not.

So what’s the problem with palm leaf wraps then?

As we said, palm leaf wraps are made from natural leaves and materials, and because of that, they can often contain unsafe levels of heavy metals, pesticides and/or mold. The heavy metals come from the soil these palm style leaves grow in, and the pesticides are sprayed directly on these crops or drift from nearby farms.

But because there are no requirements for testing rolling paper, wrap and filter products before they get to the consumer, there’s no way to know if your palm leaves are clean or potentially problematic. Additionally, many palm leaf blunt tubes, for example, use natural corn husk filters that provide breeding grounds for mold and other microbials.

Lab tests of rolling papers found in California shops found that palm leaf wraps were among those that contained pesticides and there have even been state-level product recalls on palm leaf products.

It’s one of the reasons we take it upon ourselves to test every DaySavers product through a third-party lab. We want to know if our pre-rolls are clean. We figured you deserved to know too.

And when we looked into palm leaves, what we found is that we couldn’t find a source that was consistently, reliably clean enough to meet our standards, and simply did not feel comfortable offering a product that was not safe for consumers or reliable for businesses to stake their reputation on.

Though it is worth noting the toasting and curing process used on tendu leaves can help eliminate pesticides that have accumulated on the leaves. This makes it easier for tendu leaf wraps to pass strict testing for recreational cannabis markets, but it will not affect issues related to heavy metals.

Now that’s not to say that all palm leaf wraps and tubes are bad or dangerous or would fail a test. Of course not. But it’s a risk we didn’t feel safe taking.

What Should I Smoke Instead of Palm Leaf Wraps?

So now what? You still want a flavorful, slow-burning pre-rolled blunt that doesn’t have the nicotine and tar of tobacco leaves, so what should you pack up?

Have you tried a hemp wrap? They burn smooth and slow and they’re made from the same plant as the flower you pack in, so you know the flavor is never going to get in the way. In fact, hemp wraps are made with a process very similar to those that make the reconstituted tobacco leaf wraps found on mass market blunts like cigarillos, so they roll and burn the same.

There’s also hybrid hemp wraps, which are also made with hemp, but with a different process that prevents them from drying out and becoming brittle.

Smokers looking for something a little different might enjoy a botanical hemp wrap, like tea leaf, lavender, lemongrass or even goji berry.

They all have their own unique flavor profiles, but they all make a great tobacco-free blunt wrap and a fine smoke.

But whatever you choose, make sure your blunt wraps are tested to the highest standards in the industry so you can be sure your wraps are as clean as the flower you pack into them.

Because peace of mind is the easiest way to Enjoy Your Day.